Pyro
When lightning scolded June
For being so
god
damned
dry. I heard
The farmers finally slept
like rocks.
[But I]
I talked back,
Little halfwit brat.
Tossed rockets
Sizzling like a schoolyard tease
Puffs smearing like suburban chalk
And crumbling junebugs
under heavy shower.
That backwash brag joined fleets
Of croaking toads
And the echoes rinsing oaks
of homeless crows
leaving advice:
[frill your nose]
huff these three brothers
and a lighter
Vietnam crouching in one half acre
chewing their wild onion
wet socks and foxholes.
One cocked coke bottle
trapped fumes like milk,
And [shit],
We were parched
We were waiting
We were
suddenly 500 firecrackers
tapping neighbors awake
kicking communists out of bed-
I had blisters,
[Fuck!]
Blisters I fed,
Blisters worth every dime store jolt
worth every change jar star
reminiscing
while the clouds
babysat for Summer.
I can’t tell you
what drew me to salesmen,
To one particularly honest
Wool beard of a bootlegger
And a Nolanville Firework hut
Where the view was choked
by dusty cedars
And knitted with the conversation of an RV engine,
But I prodded cupboards to ask,
[Moved the deep-fat fryer]
Interviewed my shrinking stockpile
Saying the same old shit
Through wrappers and expired sparklers:
I started resupplying
on spokes,
twelve years old-
I may have grown
nine for the price of one,
Because twelve turned to twenty
And eight years later
I’m too deep in city limits
tucked outside of seasonal sales
To stop and smell the sulfur.
I left our [lawless]
ant covered Los Alamos
To speak,
strike-anywhere-tongue-
Flirting with you like air does
with fuses
retreating
retreating,
because it costs two hands
to be a careless arsonist.
I tried quitting the sun cold-turkey,
shot you once [hypodermic]
Into damp overcast,
clung to your ghost smoke
Until you were cardboard on a stranger’s lawn
Stayed up till 5:00 am
And squeezed each couch for quarters
Drop by drop
Until the last day they could sell-
[Damn]
The taste of ‘Last Day’:
last days of sewage drains getting wasted on the water cycle
last days of bottlecap races
and hearing your name.
I propped you skyward
[scientist]
Observed your strontium sadness
eat itself 300 feet up-
It never made sense
to the dogs or cats-
Sent them scattering just like
black powder
over my backyard,
[But I ]
I unflinching and deaf
I stared wolf-eyed
Until the final crack-
Saw myself on Iwo Jima
Doing split second sinister
Doing madness
Making lovely war.
Admitting from beneath
I could never admire nature
Until I heard it shatter.
All Rights Reserved Christian Taylor 2014
